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By Ian Hanchett

https://www.breitbart.com/author/ian-hanchett/

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) defended treating religious services differently from protests despite a court ruling that doing so was wrong by stating that “The protests were an entirely different reality,” and that comparing the protests to religious services is “really apples and oranges.”

De Blasio said, “We worked with the religious leadership of this city for months. Cardinal Dolan in the Catholic Church, and so many other religious leaders, who were in full agreement that it was not time to bring back religious services because of the danger it would cause to their congregants. The protests were an entirely different reality, a national phenomenon, that was not something that the government could just say, go away. It’s something that really came from the grassroots. And obviously, it had a profound meaning, and we’re all acting on the meaning of those protests. But it’s really apples and oranges. Our religious leaders were the first to say it was not time to bring back services. Now, we’re doing it carefully, smartly. So, I think that decision profoundly misses what the very religious institutions themselves were saying.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/07/02/de-blasio-comparing-protests-to-religious-services-apples-and-oranges/

By Abigail Shrier

https://dailycaller.com/author/Abigail+Shrier

Benji is one of a growing number of young women uniquely capable of warning girls in the grips of gender fever that it might be a good idea to turn back. But Benji doesn’t believe she merely avoided personal calamity. What she escaped — she insists — was a cult.

Benji fell into YouTube and Tumblr. At thirteen, she discovered videos of women enthusing over their transformation into men. Feeling unfeminine, awkward in her body, and unhappy at home, Benji found the possibility of escape enrapturing. She never doubted the accuracy of the purely positive accounts of medical transition.

Kids her generation may be sophisticated when it comes to utilizing technology, Benji told me, but they are strikingly naïve about the truthfulness or completeness of the content. “They think that the mainstream news is full of lies and garbage, but when it comes from an independent person, that must be more realistic or something, more authentic in some way,” she said. Postmodern queer theory regards experience as more valid than fact, she said, and her generation imbibes endless streams of this ideology from the internet. “So when you see somebody [on Tumblr] talking about their experience and their opinions, that can trump data and facts because experience is more authentic than data or something.”

Benji decided privately that her story matched the video accounts of trans men online: She was trans, too. She set up her first Tumblr account and quietly announced herself as trans to viewers. She wasn’t sure anyone would notice. To her surprise, she received an overwhelming “love bombing” from strangers.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/01/former-transgender-girl-recounts-how-she-was-brainwashed-by-the-online-trans-community/

By Henry Rodgers

https://dailycaller.com/author/Henry+Rodgers

Two Republican senators introduced an amendment Wednesday to get rid of Columbus Day and make Juneteenth a new federal holiday.

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford introduced the amendment to legislation introduced by Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn which would make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

“In response to a bipartisan effort to give federal workers another day of paid leave by designating Juneteenth a federal holiday, we have offered a counterproposal that does not put us further in debt,” Johnson said Wednesday, Fox News reported. “We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday, but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange. We chose Columbus Day as a holiday that is lightly celebrated, and least disruptive to Americans’ schedules.”

“Juneteenth is a day in our history that redefined the meaning of freedom and equality in America,” Lankford said, according to Fox News. “We should celebrate these strides on the federal level while remaining cognizant of the impact the existing 10 federal holidays have on federal services and local businesses.”

“We can reduce these impacts by replacing Columbus Day as a federal holiday with Juneteenth, America’s second independence day. I’m hopeful the Senate will support this amendment to celebrate this significant day in our nation’s history,” Lankford continued.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/01/republican-senators-legislation-cancels-columbus-day/

By Kurt Zindulka

https://www.breitbart.com/author/kzindulka/

The progressive Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, said that he is “sorry” for not doing enough to fight institutional racism, claiming that it is “endemic” in society and that “unconscious bias” must be recognised and confronted.

The Prince made his comments in a video address delivered at the Diana Award ceremony honouring the 59th birthday of his late mother on Wednesday. The charity event was established to promote youth activism “in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales and her belief that young people have the power to change the world”.

In his address, Prince Harry echoed his woke wife, Meghan Markel, saying: “My wife said recently that our generation and the ones before us haven’t done enough to right the wrongs of the past. I too am sorry.”

“Sorry that we haven’t got the world to the place where you deserve it to be,” said the Prince.

“Institutional racism has no place in our societies, yet it is still endemic. Unconscious bias must be acknowledged without blame to create a better world for all of you.

“I want you to know that we are committed to being part of the solution and to being part of the change that you are all leading. Now is the time, and we know that you can do it,” Harry concluded.

The statement from Prince Harry drew considerable online backlash.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/02/im-sorry-prince-harry-apologises-institutional-racism-video-address/

By Victor Davis Hanson

https://dailycaller.com/author/Victor+Davis+Hanson

When mobs tore down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant and defaced a monument to African American veterans of the Civil War, many people wondered whether the protesters had ever learned anything in high school or college.

Did any of these iconoclasts know the difference between Grant and Robert E. Lee? Could they recognize the name “Gettysburg”? Could they even identify the decade in which the Civil War was fought?

Universities are certainly teaching our youth to be confident, loud and self-righteous. But the media blitz during these last several weeks of protests, riots and looting also revealed a generation that is poorly educated and yet petulant and self-assured without justification.

Many of the young people on the televised front lines of the protests are in their 20s. But most appear juvenile, at least in comparison to their grandparents — survivors of the Great Depression and World War II.

How can so many so sheltered and prolonged adolescents claim to be all-knowing?

Ask questions like these, and the answers ultimately lead back to the university.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/02/victor-davis-hanson-universities-sowing-the-seeds-of-their-own-obsolescence/

By Kelly Ho and Elson Tong

https://muckrack.com/kelly-ho

https://muckrack.com/elson-tong

Beijing official Zhang Xiaoming has said people who spread rumours about the police beating citizens to death at Prince Edward MTR station last August may be deemed to be breaking the newly-enacted national security law.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Zhang – executive deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) – said such accusations against police could be seen as inciting hatred of the force – which may constitute an offence if it involved foreign collusion.

Under Article 29 of the national security law, it is an offence to request, conspire with, or receive support from foreign countries or elements to “provoke hatred” against the Hong Kong government.

“For example in last year’s [extradition bill] saga, I had a deep impression of this sudden rumour that people were beaten to death at Prince Edward Station,” said Zhang.

“This kind of act focuses all societal dissatisfaction towards the police out of nothing… acts targeting the Central Government with malice and serious consequences – that might have [legal] consequences”.

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/02/spreading-rumours-of-police-killing-protesters-at-prince-edward-mtr-may-breach-hong-kong-security-law-beijing-official/

By Elson Tong

https://hongkongfp.com/author/elsontong/

Lawyers have expressed shock and concern at Hong Kong’s newly-enacted national security law, drafted by Beijing and kept from the public until its passing on Tuesday.

Solicitor-advocate and academic Eric Cheung wrote on Facebook that the law was “worse than the worst-case scenario he had predicted,” as the text represented the spirit of mainland China’s socialist legal system rather than Hong Kong’s common law system.

Cheung drew particular attention to the law’s extraterritoriality, in that any person regardless of residency or nationality could be charged for acts committed anywhere: “All eight billion people in the world should read the Hong Kong national security law thoroughly, to avoid unwittingly breaking the law.”

The Hong Kong Bar Association (HKBA) released a statement on Wednesday afternoon, highlighting the alleged inconsistencies between the national security law and the Basic Law.

In particular, the HKBA drew attention to the articles that allowed suspects to be extradited for trial in mainland China, the vesting of the power of interpretation in the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and the chief executive’s ability to select judges.

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/02/worse-than-the-worst-case-scenario-lawyers-dismayed-at-hong-kong-national-security-law/

By Andrew Mark Miller

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/andrew-mark-miller

The father of a 19-year-old shot and killed in Seattle’s “autonomous zone” said that “nobody” from the city has reached out to him to console him or provide him with information after his son’s death almost two weeks ago.

"It's like they didn't care, it didn't matter,” Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Sr. said during an emotional interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “I haven't heard from the mayor. I haven't heard from the police department, no city — nobody."

"It's like they didn't care, it didn't matter. I haven't heard from the mayor, I haven't heard from the police department, not from no city – nobody."

"They need to come talk to me, and somebody needs to come tell me something because I still don't know nothing," Anderson Sr. added about his son’s death. "Somebody needs to come to my house and knock on my door and tell me something. I don't know nothing. All I know is my son got killed up there.

"They say, 'He's just a 19-year-old.' No, that's Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr. That's my son, and I loved him."

"The only way I found out was just two of his friends, just two friends that just happened to be up there, and they came and told me," Anderson Sr. said. "They weren't even from Seattle. Now, mind you, I haven't heard — the police department, they never came.”

He was killed on June 20 in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood within the six-block or so radius that the city ceded to Black Lives Matter protesters, commonly referred to as CHOP or CHAZ, with Mayor Jenny Durkan’s endorsement.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/father-of-teenager-slain-in-chop-says-not-a-single-officPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

By Karen Freifeld

https://www.reuters.com/journalists/karen-freifeld

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and longtime associate of the late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested in New Hampshire on Thursday on U.S. charges of helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Maxwell about 8:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT) in Bradford, New Hampshire, about 25 miles west of Concord, an agency spokeswoman said on Thursday. She was due to appear in federal court on Thursday, sources told Reuters.

Epstein was awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors when he was found hanged in an apparent suicide while in a New York City jail in August.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a news release it would announce charges later in the day against Maxwell “for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein.”

Federal prosecutors said in court papers she had “enticed and caused minor victims to travel to Epstein’s residence in different states” and that Maxwell would assist in their “grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse.”

Prosecutors charged that Maxwell was well aware of Epstein’s preference for minor girls, and that he intended to sexually abuse them.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-ghislaine-maxwell/ghislaine-maxwell-arrested-accused-of-helping-jeffrey-epstein-lure-girls-into-sex-abuse-idUSKBN24321V

By Varun Hukeri

https://dailycaller.com/author/varun@dailycaller.com/

Surveillance footage released by Philadelphia police Tuesday depicted an arson suspect accidentally lighting himself on fire while starting a fire at a home in northeast Philadelphia.

The incident occurred June 19 around 12:42 a.m. next to a house on Knights Road, where a man could be seen pouring a flammable liquid on nearby bushes next to the house, ABC 6 reported. After starting the fire, the footage shows flames exploding from the bushes and landing on the man.

The man, still on fire, could be seen running away from the bushes and towards the driveway. He then tumbled out onto the street and rolled on the ground in an attempt to put out the fire before promptly fleeing the scene.

The police department’s Northeast Detective Division stated that he was last seen driving down Knights Road in his car and was wearing a black jacket, red shirt and black shorts, Fox 29 reported. It is also unclear from the surveillance footage if the man suffered any injuries from the fire or when fleeing the scene.

The incident is one of several arson cases being investigated by Philadelphia police. Law enforcement authorities have also been investigating a June 1 incident when a fire almost burned down Kensington Smoke Shop in northeast Philadelphia, according to PhillyVoice.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/30/arson-suspect-accidentally-sets-himself-on-fire-northeast-philadelphia/

By Dan Williams

https://www.reuters.com/journalists/dan-williams

Israel’s foreign minister said a move toward the proposed annexation of occupied West Bank land was unlikely on Wednesday, the start date set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for discussing such a move.

“It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Gabi Ashkenazi, a member of the centrist Blue and White party that is a coalition partner of Netanyahu’s conservative Likud, told Israel’s Army Radio.

“I reckon there will be nothing today, regarding (the extension of Israeli) sovereignty.”

Netanyahu and his senior coalition partner, Defence Minister Benny Gantz are at odds over the timing of any unilateral annexation move.

After meeting U.S. envoys on Tuesday to discuss annexation within the framework of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, Netanyahu said such talks would continue for several days.

Trump’s proposal calls for Israeli sovereignty over about 30% of the West Bank - land on which Israel has built settlements for decades - as well as creation of a Palestinian state under strict conditions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-annexation/israeli-foreign-minister-says-annexation-move-unlikely-wednesday-idUSKBN2424FE

By Reuters

https://www.nytimes.com/section/reuters/news

South Korea has started distributing stocks of the COVID-19 treatment remdesivir that have been donated by Gilead Sciences Inc and plans to begin talks to purchase more supplies in August, its disease control agency said on Wednesday.

It is the first country to disclose a timeline for talks with Gilead. The drugmaker said this week it has priced remdesivir at $390 per vial in developed countries and agreed to allocate nearly all of its supply of the drug to the United States over the next three months.

One of the few treatments shown to alter the course of COVID-19, remdesivir is expected to be in high demand. The intravenously administered medicine has won emergency-use authorisation in several countries and full approval in Japan after a clinical trial showed it helped shorten hospital stays.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/07/01/world/asia/01reuters-health-coronavirus-southkorea-remdesivir.html